"Screw" Compact Fluorescents. How About THESE?!?

by: Lowell

Sun Feb 01, 2009 at 21:15:02 PM EST

Cambridge University researchers have developed cheap, light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs that produce brilliant light but use very little electricity. They will cost £2 (USD$2.80) and last up to 60 years. The LED bulbs are 12 times more efficient than conventional tungsten incandescent bulbs and three times more efficient than compact fluorescent low-energy bulbs. As well as lasting 100,000 hours, ten times as long as today's eco-bulbs, the LED bulbs do not contain mercury, so disposal is less damaging to the environment, they do not flicker and fully illuminate instantly, unlike the current generation of eco-bulbs.

[...]

The 10-fold price reduction could slash household lighting bills by three-quarters. A manufacturer has begun work on production prototypes and the first bulbs could be in the shops within two years. The head of the Centre for Gallium Nitride, Professor Colin Humphreys, said: "This could well be the holy grail in terms of providing our lighting needs for the future."

"We are very close to achieving highly efficient, low-cost white LEDs. It is our belief they will render current energy-efficiency bulbs redundant."

Pretty amazing, huh?  Now, imagine doing this not only for light bulbs, but for everything else - heating and cooling equipment, refrigeration, automobiles, power generation and transmission, etc., etc.  Pretty soon, we'd have an economy that consumed a fraction of the energy it does today, cost consumers a fraction of the money they currently spend on energy, emitted a fraction of the carbon dioxide it does today, and sent a fraction of the money we currently send to countries that aren't our friends.  I believe that's known as a "win-win-win-win" situation.  Did I miss any "wins" there? :)