Alternative Fuel Choice

Conventional incandescent light bulbs, which includes halogen bulbs, turn barely more than ten percent of their energy input into visible light. They function by heating a metal filament to almost melting point and most of the input electricity is, as you might expect, wasted in the form of heat. It would therefore be understating things somewhat to describe them as not exactly efficient at doing the very thing they are supposed to do

As a little heater the average conventional light bulb is not bad, but unfortunately this heat is generally dissipated someplace useless like the ceiling and if you’re actually trying to keep the temperature down then all they do is make your air conditioning work harder. Whichever way you cut it, you are paying good money for heat you almost certainly don’t want and getting a lousy deal on light.

Energy saving or “low energy” light bulbs that are significantly more efficient have been available for quite a few years now. These usually take the form of compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) and are presently the most commonly available type of energy saving bulb for the domestic market. CFLs have not really caught on though, most probably because they’re oversized, take a noticeable amount of time to attain maximum brightness and are expensive by comparison with incandescent bulbs. Despite some improvements to make CFLs more discrete, get to maximum brightness in less time, and reduce the price but there is no hiding the fact that they have a tarnished image, which is not helped by the fact that they also contain toxic mercury vapour and are thus not easy to dispose of in an environmentally friendly way.

The new generation of energy saving light bulbs are based on light emitting diodes (LED). These are orders of magnitude more energy efficient than current CFLs but until very recently have not been sufficiently bright enough for normal domestic lighting.

However LED bulbs are now available as genuine alternatives, especially the ones intended to replace GU10 or MR16 halogen lamps. If you are contemplating trying this path then you should also be aware that a lot of white LED bulbs (particularly those labelled “cool” as opposed to “warm” white) can have a slightly bluish tinge, which some people find quite attractive but which can stick out somewhat if used with other types of lighting.

Undoubtedly though, the principle advantage of LED light bulbs is their ability to they convert ninety percent of the electricity consumed directly into light while dissipating practically none of that precious energy as heat which means that they need a lot less energy to operate them. Around 10 times less which in terms of cost savings is massive for the simple reason that the cost of electric lighting is nearly all about the running cost. The price of the light bulbs themselves is simply insignificant by comparison.

It’s also a fact that LED lights last 20 or more times longer and thus require replacing much less often. The benefits should be fairly obvious then; LED lights not only save you money, they also help the environment. The manufacturing process is more straightforward than for CFL bulbs and there are no nasty disposal headaches.

There is little doubt thought that the main benefit for the environment stems from the fact that because LED lights use less electricity then less electricity has to be produced which in turn means less carbon dioxide emissions.

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