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Lifecycle Energy Costs of LED, CFL Bulbs Calculated
necro81 writes "The NY Times is reporting on a new study from Osram, a German lighting manufacturer, which has calculated the total lifecycle energy costs of three lightbulb technologies and found that both LEDs and CFLs use approximately 20% of the energy of incandescents over their lifetimes. While it is well known that the newer lighting technologies use a fraction of the energy of incandescents to produce the same amount of light, it has not been proven whether higher manufacturing energy costs kept the new lighting from offering a net gain. The study found that the manufacturing and distribution energy costs of all lightbulb technologies are only about 2% of their total lifetime energy cost — a tiny fraction of the energy used to produce light." The study uses the assumption that LEDs last 2.5 times longer than CFLs, and 25 times longer than incandescents.
Halogens get dismissed by prissy "green" zealots because, inconveniently, they're actually more efficient than the maligned incandescent (they run at a higher temperature, giving a better efficiency) while producing the best artificial light.
Even modern CFLs or power LEDs generate crappy light when compared to an ordinary halogen; except the sunlight, there's no better light for reading than halogen.