Japanese homebuilder Yamane-Mokuzai [JP] has reportedly received an order from an individual for a single-family house that will illuminated with LED lighting only.
The company says the house, which is currently under construction, is located in Higashi Hiroshima and will be completed next month. It’s 221 sq. meters large and will have about 150 lights. In addition, Sharp’s Plasmacluster Ion technology will be built into some of the lamps and is supposed to fight viruses and bacteria in the air.
Yamane-Mokuzai claims that compared with standard lamps, power consumption will be reduced by a whopping 80%. If the lights are used for more than 10 years, the LED fixtures will be entirely recouped.
Via Nikkei [JP]
Here’s a question if anyone else understands this better. The downside of a regular light is that it uses more electricity, and the downside of LED’s is that you need a lot of them to generate the amount of light needed to light up a room. Because we have to use lots of LED’s outputting a small amount of light each, is the plastic and other components that we create more harmful than the energy creation?
Basically, consider all the parts needed for those LED lights. Even though you save on electricity, the cost to society in an economic sense might be higher unless we have a method of disposing of the increased number of parts. Are those LED’s going to be disassembled into smaller parts and somehow not impact the environment too much?
I don’t have an issue with “green” technologies, but I have a feeling that many people think they can just cut back on electricity and not worry about other things. The cost to society might be higher even if we save a little on the power generation in our own wallets.
I am speaking in an economic sense and so it might be cheaper over a 10-15 year period relative to our own wallets.
But you forget the LIFESPAN of LED’s
First thing I do is I UNDERVOLT my led’s to further reduce the power draw AND extend lifespan and reduce heat. (most are way overpowered with insufficient cooling)
Theoretically the LED’s I am using will outlive ME and probably outlast any kids I have.
Consider I replaced my 80watt Kitchen FL fixture with 12 Led bulbs. It is now BRIGHTER than the FL fixture and consumes 18 watts of power and in THEORY will never ever have to be replaced.
How many FL tubes would I go through in that time? we have had to replace the entire fixture once that I remember and usually get around 5 or 6 years out of the tubes (not bad really)
lets assume 10 years. in 2 generations thats 6 sets of bulbs or 12 tubes. Somehow I think far less than 12 of those tubes consumes far more physical materials than my 12 little LED bulbs. PLUS the fixtures.
I think ONE set of tubes contains more physical matter than all 12 of my little LED bulbs.
SO lower power consumption AND lower materials consumption.
its a win win.
I have about 50% of my house converted to LED. 3 upstairs bedrooms and all 3 bathrooms are LED as well as the kitchen.
I am working on the hallways. to retain aesthetics I need to fabricate my own fixtures.
The rest of the house is simply available cash. I found some VERY affordable LED tubes with 200 led’s in each tube. problem is there badly designed they draw 12 watts and DIE fast they need to draw less than 4 watts. I use VARIAC’s to lower the voltage until the watt consumption is below 4 watts but this is both expensive and a pain to install. BUT worth it.
I estimate I have lowered our monthly electric bill at least $40 already. I could see up to $100 reduction once we go fully LED
On top of that the potential goes even higher. Going Solar Electric is impractical for meer mortals like us. but what would happen if EVERY single light in your house all on at the same time consumed less than 400 watts. WELL suddenly a battery/solar solution becomes FAR more possible and far more affordable.
This would 100% remove my lighting from the grid and make me semi independent at least as far as illumination goes.
The Potential is just huge. I LOVE LED’s :-)
My room is the most power hungry (I really like it bright) I have it nearly as bright as day and far brighter than the 2 150watt halogens I used to to use. I light the room with over 1600 LED’s and consume a meager 27 watts :-) NICE !
Oh and everything in an LED is recyclable. Nothing toxic and nothing dangerous.
I would think that since LED lights last almost forever, that we would actually be using less materials over that period of time than traditional lighting, which i used to find myself changing a bulb every month or so.
That’s a valid point.
I’m just going to make up some numbers here and say that LED’s last 10x as long as standard bulbs, but it takes 100 LED’s to replace a single bulb. I don’t know how to compare the amount of resources needed to make one compared to the other though.
Because they last 10 times as long, for every 1 traditional bulb, 10 LED’s would be equivalent. In reality, I know for a fact that even higher output LED’s will require 100 or more to replace a bulb, which is 10 times the equivalent amount. However, this comparison keeps the materials used in each LED/bulb as being equal.
We know that 1 LED uses less materials than 1 traditional bulb, however by how much and what materials are used is something I don’t know. Knowing the materials would be important because if certain materials are things we can’t recycle or dispose of properly, then that could make the cost to society greater than the benefit.
Thank you for being part of the small percentage of people that look at the whole picture and how one thing affects another. Your question is extremely valid- will the use of more of the LEDs cause an environmental impact vs. using less energy and therefore less air pollution.
I found as far as the whole “green” issue, we need to look at what affects humans, more so than the planet itself.
I feel the bottom line issue is really energy use and consumption. That is because we know that control of energy resources- even more than food and water supplies- is what drives the global geo-political situation on this planet. Honestly, if strife keeps escalating and we wind up killing off the human race, who really gives a damn about any other species or the planet itself.
Your numbers are way off. For High Output led 1 or 2 will replace a standard bulb and use only slightly more material than regular led though the heatsink will consume a lot more material BUT its pure metal so 100% recyclable.
while I might need say 200 regular LED’s to replace 1 40watt bulb its not TEN times its HUNDREDS of times longer lasting. Remember a properly made LED will last in excess of 100,000 hours especially if you under power them to reduce stress. typical bulb is less than 1000 hours. thats 100 times MINIMUM and assuming that regular bulb actually lasts 1000 hours (not likely)
Wait, what? 1 or 2 high output LED’s can replace a standard bulb? Please point me in the direction.
I am talking about using LED’s in rooms and not a flashlight or something.
Could you link to the products you use?
Also, when I said that we need 100 or more LED’s to replace a bulb, that was based on some numbers I had done a while ago. It might be down to 50-60, I’m not too sure.
What I do remember is that the bulb replacements with LED’s on Amazon had reviews saying that they’re good for reading lights, but not enough to light up a room yet.
Plenty of retailers (online mostly) carry LED Floodlights and Spotlights, along with regular LED Light Bulbs. My living room has 2 sets of 5 in-a-row LED Floods @ 6w a piece. Each is equivalent to ~60w incandescent. Now they were some $54 a piece, but I think worth it. They paid for themselves the 1st year. They’re more than enough to light up my living room to (more-than) a comfortable level.
LED light bulbs have come a long way and now produce clear white light that. You can replace each incandescent or CFL bulb with a single LED and get beautiful and effective lighting in your home, office or anywhere really and probably never have to replace that bulb again. LED Source has replacement bulbs for both regular fixtures and for pot light fixtures. The original replacement cost is the only negative thing about LEDs but I expect that, as more hit the market, the costs will come down. The long-term savings in electricity costs, which are huge, and the fact the LEDs have no toxic materials in them whatsoever, makes up for the original cost.
As pointed out, wouldn’t the materials from all those LED lights do just as much damage long-term than the offending older lighting to begin with?
And who wants to live in a house with all LED lighting? Wouldn’t you feel like you’re inside a pinball machine all the time?
Led’s are a perfect and sensible replacement for home lighting. Problem is in the installation cost of a bulb that actually produces a “white” light comparable to a decent 6500K flourescent such as my desklamp bulb.
Give me 6500K or nothing.
Yes recycling is a huge problem worldwide and yet the lower voltage and longer lifespan means more useability overall when and if the requirements (6500K) and the price comes down.
Don’t forget the also fixture light pollution created by idiots who make fixtures.
Oh man I could not live with 6500k. I am most comfortable at around 4500k 5000k MAX
I hate cold light. 6500k is way way too cold for my liking.
but thats the nice thing about LED’s in THEORY you can make them produce any wavelength of light you want. (in theory) in practice well we are not affordably there yet.
Over 10 years, a house of that size would go through 150 lightbulbs easily. 150 tiny lights instead of 150 big bulbs is probably more environtal. Then, 10 years after that, 150 more lights compared to nothing is even more environmental yet.
But it is better enough this moment.
Ten years later we can talk about that again
The world of High Technologies moves fast, SEE: http://theinfochief.com/
A £2 energy-saving lightbulb that lasts for 60 years has been developed by scientists at Cambridge University. The researchers have designed a bulb that is three times more energy efficient than today’s best offer and can cut lighting bills by 75 per cent.The bulbs are 12 times more efficient that conventional tungsten bulbs and three times more efficient than compact fluorescent “energy efficient” bulbs. They can burn for 100,000 hours and they illuminate instantly and can be dimmed, unlike energy efficient bulbs. -
I want to start growing my winter greens with them as soon as I can! They may just have the effect of boosting home gardening and plant starting in Northern climates, and may even feed a hungry Europe with good garden food! This is a remarkable breakthrough, and I pray it goes to production as expected, and doesn’t get bought off or otherwise mothballed by society.
My three bedroom house goes through about 1
lightbulb a year. About 50% incandescent and the
rest are compact fluorescent bulbs.
Also, I switch off lights when there is no one in the
room. The cost saving in going to LED is just
not there, when you look at the up front costs.
For the person who will save $100 by going to LED
bulbs in one year, I really think you ought to switch off lights
when no one is in the room. That is the only way
i can see someone saving $100 per month. My
bill for a family of 4 is US$200 per month and I
run two servers ( offsite backups ) for my business
and power tools every weekend doing welding etc.
Sorry, that should be $100 per year, not month.