Making Strides Toward Low-Cost LED Lighting

Roland Piquepaille writes "You all know that incandescent bulbs are pretty inefficient, converting only 10% of electricity into light — and 90% into heat. Light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, could soon replace incandescent and compact fluorescent bulbs in our homes. They are more efficient and environmentally friendly. But LED lights are currently too expensive because they are using a sapphire-based technology. Now, Purdue University researchers have found a way to build low-cost and bright LEDs for home lighting. According to the researchers, the LED lights now on the market cost about $100 while LED lights based on their new technology could be commercially available within a couple of years for a cost of about $5. It would also help to cut our electricity bill by about 10%."

Comments

I heard

[Anonymous Coward]

That Roland enjoys fellating men.

Re:Is it white, though?

[wiIIyhilI]

No because it is politically incorrect to do so, thanks to the liberal Jews who give too much power to the niggers.

LED lights should be as close as to the nigger color as possible.

THANK GOD

[wiIIyhilI]

Today, while driving through town, I wound up behind a minivan that had a big sticker on the back. The sticker had an Israeli flag in the middle of it, and under it the quotation from the book of Genesis that reads âoeI will bless those who bless thee.â

I would like to take this time to list my own reasons for thanking and blessing Israel, our lone ally in the Middle East, for everything she has done for us, since I am quite sure most Americans are unaware of just what kind of friend she has been to us.

For extorting from me and my fellow Americans $4,000,000,000.00 a year for the last 4 decades, we bless thee.

For taking our most sophisticated weapons technology and stealing it for yourself without paying the American patent holders, we bless thee.

For taking that high-tech military technology and selling it to our enemies, such as the Russians and Chinese, thus further endangering us, we bless thee.

For using that weaponry in a sustained attack against a United States ship, the USS Liberty, in an attempt to sink her, thus preventing US servicemen from revealing to the rest of the world information concerning the war crimes they witnessed you commit against Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai Desert during the Six Day War, as well as for the purposes of dragging the US into yet another one of your murderous adventures, we bless thee.

For killing 35 and wounding 170 American sailors aboard the USS Liberty, we bless thee.

For bribing the United States government into covering it up, preventing any justice from being done for the benefit of the families of the lost sailors - as well as the American People, we bless thee.

For sending your agents into Egypt and blowing up American buildings for the purpose of blaming the Arabs in an event known as the Lavon Affair, we bless thee.

For sending your agents into Libya during the Reagan administration, and broadcasting radio messages in Arabic that were designed to sound like âoeterrorist cell planningâ so that the US would initiate military strikes against Khadafi in an event known as Operation Trojan Horse, we bless thee.

For withholding information from us concerning the planned attacks against the US Marine barracks in Lebanon, attacks you knew about through your moles in the Islamic world and about which you deliberately refused to warn us in order to further your interests against the Arabs, we bless thee.

For employing Jonathon Pollard, an American serviceman paid to spy for Israel in order to steal even more of our National Security secrets for your parasitic purposes, we bless thee.

For blackmailing President Clinton through one of your sayanim, Monica Lewinsky, in order to prevent a coherent peace program from being pushed forward between yourself and the Palestinian people whom you have brutalized and murdered for the last 50 years, we bless thee.

For breaking every agreement you have made with your Arab neighbors, stealing their land, displacing, murdering, and treating them like the animals you see them as, we bless thee.

For using your agents within the first Bush administration to involve us in the first Gulf War, causing the deaths of American men and women, and exposing our servicemen to whatever bioweapons were and are responsible which have led to Gulf War Syndrome, we bless thee.

For your role in the September 11 attacks in this country, and for blackmailing and bribing the US government into deporting back to Israel the 100 or more intelligence agents that were arrested after the attacks, we bless thee.

For suppressing the information from the American people of your involvement in the September 11 attacks and sending us in the wrong direction in search of answers, we bless thee.

For using one of your agents in the US Army Weapons Lab to steal anthrax and distribute it into our mail system, terrorizing US citizens and killing several in order to blame the Arabs, we bless thee.

For using your agents in the US Government, namely, Rumsfel

Forget Compact Flourescent

[lawpoop]

I'm as much of a tree-hugger as the next guy, but I really don't like Compact Flourescent bulbs. Theoretically, if you're worried about energy use, they're a good idea. But I think in practically, they're a bad idea, because of the mercury content.

Compact fluorescents give out crappy light, and nobody really wants crappy light in their home. It's the wrong color, wrong intensity, etc. Once LEDs become widely available, we'll all be throwing out the compacts, and replacing them with LEDs that give off light that we like. Those compacts have mercury in them, and all that mercury will be going straight into the landfills and our drinking water. The compacts have a life of 10 or so years; but we won't be using them that long, once LEDs come along. So the long-term money saving aspect will be a waste.
Also, I can't count the number of lamps and light-bulbs I smashed as a kid. Do you want your little ones smashing up these compacts and getting a good dose of mercury vapors?

I say just hold off until LEDs really become affordable. Don't put any more mercury into our environment; especially not your home.

Re:Yea,

[Salgak1]

Problem is, drop an LED lamp, and the worst you have to do sweep it up and throw it away. Drop and break a CFL, and you have a hazmat situation. . . Ever read the EPA guidelines on cleaning up broken CFLs ??? ??? Illuminating, indeed. . .

Re:Is it white, though?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get it.

That's okay nigga, your mom gets it.

Re:CFL Color

[kklein]

God bless you. Proof positive that CFLs do, in fact, look like shit. I ought to put that second one in my sig.