Thomas Edison patented the “long lasting filament” in 1880. In 2009, it’s fashionable to pretend to care about the environment. Are these two facts unrelated? Not really, no, because researchers at Cambridge University have developed a light bulb that uses light emitting diodes. These LED-based light bulbs not only, you know, brighten your day, but they’re also environmentally friendly. Everybody wins.
The new lightbulb is better than traditional tungsten and florescent ones in every respect. They’re cheaper, at around $2.85 (wow, the Pound has fallen!) per bulb; they last longer, rated at 100,000 hours; they use less electricity, possibly lowering the percentage of your electricity bill that lights account for (from 20 percent of your bill to 5 percent); they turn on instantly; they don’t use mercury, so you can dispose of ‘em easily; and they’re smaller, meaning that you can use a bunch of them en masse without batting an eye.
Why did it take so long for LED light bulbs to become cheap enough for everyday consumer use? One of the materials that’s needed to create LEDs—gallium nitride—used to cost a whole lot. That’s because, as the Daily Mail so evocotively puts it, had to be “grown” on sapphire wafers. Total cost per LED light bulb back then: £20, or $28.
To progress!
Hi Nicholas,
We have an online LED Superstore – LEDinsider.com – and what I’ve been amazed by is that even for the bulbs we source from China, where they are manufactured, the best are still getting their crystals, as they call them, from places like CREE (which is in North Carolina in the USA).
The cost of the LED lights we offer does continue to go down, thankfully for us all – and I do encourage you in the UK to check us out, and another site http://www.Eaglelight.com because we lower prices all the time to reflect what we can get LEDs for at wholesale.
As more and more people realize that CFLs are full of horrific toxic mercury and that LEDs are much more energy efficient than CFLs too, there will be more demand for LEDs and that, and innovation, will bring the prices down more and more.
We do ship to the UK and we have bulb bases and voltage LEDs that work in Europe. The bulbs I like the best are the PAR20 flood and spot lights and the Pharox 40 watt replacement bulbs, both of which you can find on Eaglelight or LEDinsider.
Thanks for your blog and keep up the great reporting. Ellen
I love articles about LEDs. As far as I’m concerned CFLs are a joke because of their mercury content, I’ve basically stopped purchasing them because if they break on carpet your sol!
As for LEDs I’m curious about their color temps. I like incandescents but so far LEDs have a hard time of putting out a pure white, and wonder if there have been any improvements in that area.
Check out http://www.seesmartled.com
They offer a variety of color temps.
The Seoul P4 is an alternative to the Cree
While I myself am greatly anticipating the arrival of cheap LED lights for the enormous energy savings, I do get tired of listening to people moan, whine, and proclaim the end of the world due to the mercury in CFLs. In 2007 the mercury content of these bulbs was around 4mg. Now most of them are less than 3mg. Your good ol’ thermometer in your medicine cabinet has 500mg of mercury. The amount of mercury a CFL is so small that it vaporizes and diffuses out of the local area within minutes at levels well below any standard of safety you can find. So unless you are going to lock yourself in a closet and throw a bunch of CFL bulbs at the wall and then stay in the closet for an hour or so, there is no danger. I suppose that you could make the case that a child might eat some of it, but as far as I am concerned, you probably have a bigger issue with the fact that the kid just ate a bunch of broken glass.
Hi,
I would like to import the LED bulbs to Iceland, what would be the best way for me to proceed with that, do you know a good contact name and information
Hi Vidar,
Just saw your post. You can go to “contact us” on http://www.LEDinsider.com, send us your contact information, and we’ll hook you up so you can import LEDs into Iceland.
Hope you’re staying warm this winter!
My best, Ellen
If it wouldn’t take over 10 years for the savings to pay for the bulbs I would fill my house with them.
I would like the price of this item I would like to know I work at healthsouth in chattanooga Tenn. IN maintence.
Thank You.
Introducing the world’s first 5 spectrum hybrid led grow panel, the ISIS family of LED grow lights.
I have tried to find the energy efficiency of LED bulbs via Google for about 20 minutes. Why do none of the reviews just give simple numerical data, like how many lumens does the bulb give, per watt?
That data is available for other types of lamp; so why are the LED buld manufacturers so shy about giving data? I can only think these bulbs are not living up to the claims made for them. One review said they are ‘dim’, but gave no further details.
We are told that LED lamps are ‘more efficient’ than compact fluorescents, and I would like to try one, but I’m not about to spend any money until some proper data is available to evaluate them. The only message I have picked up from the sites I looked at is that they are ‘dim’ – which is hardly likely to make me rush out to buy one.