What will be the (hidden) flaws in LED bulbs?

When greenist fundamentalists insisted that everyone must switch away from tungsten light bulbs, they even managed to convince some governments to make incandescent light bulbs illegal. Only the positive aspects of CFLs were promoted by environmentalists, governments, and electrical utilities. Our local BC Hydro utility even gives away CLFs during events at hardware stores.

But now that LEDs are the new Saviour of our haggard-looking and repeatedly-raped mother Earth, the negatives of CFLs are coming to light:

• They contain mercury, and so cannot be easily disposed.
• They do not last very long in typical lighting situations in homes, where lights are turned on and off repeatedly throughout the day.  

As it turns out, these "electricity saving" light bulbs operate longest when left on, thereby consuming power unnecessarily. It's true: the ones in our bathrooms burn out after a half-year or so; the one we use in the kitchen as a nightlight lasts years.

Which leads to the obvious question: what are the hidden flaws in LED lighting?

These are not your dad's incandescent bulbs, where electricity simply flowed through the base, along the tungsten wire, and back out. LED bulbs contain a lot of electronic circuitry to distribute the current to each individual LED semi-conductor.

They might not last very long. Our town switched its traffic signal bulbs to LEDs, and we are already seeing ones where half the light is burned out. Since these bulbs are made of hundreds of LEDs, I suspect the problem lays with the internal circuitry that controls them. Chinese-made capacitors, in particular, have a bad reputation for wearing out early.

Yah, so I'm waiting for the day in the future when some alarmist group or another launches its anti-LED scare campaign. Sheesh guys, make up  your minds. Your indecision over what's good for the earth is killing me!

 

Comments

[Patrick EMIN]

Unfortunately, this is in french but ANSES (french government agency for environment security) just issued a report (310 pages!) about the danger of some LED lighting http://www.afssa.fr/Documents/AP2008sa0408.pdf (english article: http://goo.gl/BGG8o)

[clarkin]

Did you see this one last winter? Very sad, a death blamed on LED traffic light.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/02/us/02lights.html?_r=1&src=twt&twt=nytimes