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This is excellent. However, please do not say "this is enough for me" after you replace all your incandescent light bulbs with these. Household energy consumpti

This is excellent. However, please do not say "this is enough for me" after you replace all your incandescent light bulbs with these. Household energy consumption is a tiny, tiny drop in the bucket compared to industrical energy consumption and shipping.

ams6110 14y ago
I'm not quite sure what you're saying... that the LED bulbs have a much higher energy and environmental "cost" in manufacturing, compared to a standard incandescent? That's quite likely true and has to be considered in the big picture (similar issues with electric vehicles, that their proponents like to ignore). For me the answer is simple: $13 is way too much to pay for a light bulb, I don't care how efficient it is.
- matt_ 14y ago
  That $13 led lamp will last you 10x as long as an incandescent while saving you all of that electricity. As long as the cri is acceptable there's really no reason not to get it.
- DanBC 14y ago
  Nakedrobot2 is saying that industry in general wastes / uses very much more energy than households do. While it's a good thing for households to move to energy efficient lighting it's not nearly enough. We need to work out ways for industry to reduce their energy waste / use. $13 for a lightbulb isn't too bad, if it's a nice light and efficient and lasts a long time. Businesses pay more than that if they need their light-bulb repair technician to get a ladder. For me the benefit of all these low energy bulbs is to have lamps everywhere, rather than one or two bright lights. It's a shame that most of them are a harsh blue/white light at the moment.
  - fennecfoxen 14y ago
    Cree offers its bulbs in daylight and soft-white variants. I've seen in-between bright-white 60W LED bulbs as well, but usually for about ~$6 more or so from other manufacturers (mostly Philips).
- jessriedel 14y ago
  > $13 is way too much to pay for a light bulb, I don't care how efficient it is. You probably should care. It only takes 6 hours per day of usage for your 60W incandecent to suck up $13 of electricity in a year. And you'll have had to change it at least once. The LEDs will last for over a decade. Yes, if you're only renting a house/apartment for a year then you may not recoup your costs (although it will be close). Similarly if the light is on for less than an hour per day. But if you plan on sticking around awhile it makes complete financial sense. You can literally save $200 per bulb over the lifetime of a bulb used heavily. Also, the prices will continue to fall. EDIT: mikeash is right that I should have mentioned the dependancy of efficiency savings on your local electricity prices. I used 10 cents per kilowatt hour, which is a bit under the national average of 12 cents (meaning I was being conservative in potential savings). http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/10/27/141766341/the-price-of-electricity-in-your-state http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/10/27/141766341/the-pric...
  - mikeash 14y ago
    Make sure to state what price you're assuming for electricity when making these claims. The cost of electricity in the US can vary by a factor of 3-4 depending on where you live. I'm sure it's worthwhile for any heavily-used light even in very cheap areas, but the specific breakeven time will vary quite a bit.
    - jcampbell1 14y ago
      You also have to make an assumption about the typical weather. The waste heat offsets heating costs in cold climates, but in hot climates, you must also burn additional electricity to pump the waste heat outside. My estimate is that a 50W bulb efficiency improvement results in a saving between 30W-70W depending on the climate. If you live in Iceland, the payback is probably never. If you live in Singapore, you will recoup the cost in months. I personally use LEDs everwhere except my bathroom during winter, where I use inefficient globe bulbs because it warms the bathroom.
      - mikeash 14y ago
- ssmoot 14y ago
  OTOH, my entire house is fluorescent and LED. My monthly electricity bill is $65. For a house! I never have to replace burnt out bulbs. At $13 I'd guess the LED is actually about at break-even over the life of the bulb vs incandescent unless you're buying incandescent in the big packs of 30 bulbs for $10. The only gas in my house is my central heating, and my old water heater. I plan to replace that with point-of-use electric tankless units. No more waiting 2 minutes for hot water at the kitchen sink! With a $3,000 grid-connected solar kit I'm pretty sure I can get to near $0/month on electricity, even with the electric water heaters and the Nissan Leaf I just bought last night. ;-) It's the future brother. Stuff lasts longer, provides a better experience and is cheaper. It's win/win/win. The environmental wins might not be all that dramatic with the impact of production factored in, but if you're in it for the long haul I figure you can still feel OK about it if you were up to replace a bulb/water-heater/car/etc anyways when you make the switch. PS: Have you seen the price on POU tankless water heaters? Once you have the panel/breaker/wiring in place, they're dirt cheap compared to traditional water heaters.
  - driverdan 14y ago
    Lighting is a small fraction of your overall electricity usage. HVAC alone uses many times as much. While using efficient lighting is a good idea far too many people get hung up on it when there are better places to conserve.
    - nitrogen 14y ago
      It depends on how many people are in your family and how frequently they forget to turn off the lights. Plus, having 400W of incandescent bulbs on is 400 more watts that the A/C system has to cool.
      - ssmoot 14y ago
        Wow. I never thought of that. Thanks for the enlightening comment! Makes perfect sense.
      - ars 14y ago
        A good rule of thumb is it takes and extra 1/3 as much electricity to cool. So your 400 watts of bulbs will consume 133 watts in the cooling process.
- chaostheory 14y ago
  Please tell me you're using CFLs as the very least. Yes the upfront price is higher, but these bulbs actually pay for themselves in approximately two years and they start saving you money after that and not to mention time from not having to buy and install new bulbs.
  - giardini 14y ago
    Problem is, the CFLs don't last. They usually don't last even a single year. My story: I got the faith: I replaced every incandescent in our condominium association with CFL. After one year, most all the CFLs had failed, despite having 3- to 5-year warranties. Also noticed another peculiarity: CFLs are stolen more often! Apparently our condominium parking lot has become a CFL bank for individuals who want to lower their light bills. So last week I bought a 4-pack of 40W incandescents for $4! That is down from the $12 I would have paid for four CFLs that wouldn't last any longer and that, when broken, are a mess/danger to clean up. No more CFLs for me, thank you! The whole CFL thing is looking like a scam.
    - DanBC 14y ago
      > when broken, are a mess/danger to clean up. When a company or a government agency gives instructions for clean-up they're going to go 'by the book' as much as possible. They give these scary sounding instructions because for every 50 people who manage to put a broken CFL into a bin without instructions there's going to be 1 who'll gather a bunch of broken CFLs in a sack and toss it into a lake; or who operates a trash business and who stores kilograms of them in the open leaching stuff into the water table. See also women being told to avoid '4d scans' (no medical purpose; everything carries some risk even if unknown and unquantifiable; thus avoid this risk because there's no medical benefit) or coffee cups with "This is hot" printed on them.
    - gambiting 14y ago
      I just replace my CFLs under warranty. As you said,most have 3-5 year warranties, so I just go back to the shop and get a brand new one. I always put the receipt in the box and the box in a safe place so I can always find it.
- stonemetal 14y ago
  Per Ahmdal's law optimizing something like residential light bulb energy use isn't going to have a large impact. So don't do it and say "this is enough for me" because you have made the smallest drop in the smallest bucket.
- sixothree 14y ago
  It was not very long ago that CF bulbs were $13 each. And even they were still more cost efficient to buy than incandescent bulbs.
- pbreit 14y ago
  > $13 is way too much to pay for a light bulb A bulb that never needs replacing (assuming you stay in residence less than 10 years) and pays for itself (and more) in energy savings? Sold. Easy.
othello 14y ago
This is actually a common misconception: in the US (as in most OECD countries), households consume slightly more energy than the industry. As a case in point, in 2009, industry consumed 256 million tons of oil equivalent, versus 262 mtoe for the residential sector (ie households). http://www.iea.org/stats/balancetable.asp?COUNTRY_CODE=US http://www.iea.org/stats/balancetable.asp?COUNTRY_CODE=US
- scurvy 14y ago
  Most energy consumption in the US goes towards heating and cooling, not illumination. Making your house more energy efficient starts with your windows and doors, not your lightbulbs.
  - othello 14y ago
    Obviously, that's right. I was just pointing out that in the aggregate, improvements to energy efficiency in the residential sector are not a "tiny, tiny drop" vis-a-vis industry as the GP was implying. And it's also true that residential lighting is not a big energy consumer, even though it still represents close to 10% of US electricity use (not of overall energy use, of course). http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/light2006.pdf http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication...
  - lutorm 14y ago
    That depends -- the energy wasted by illumination needs to be cooled away (if you live in a climate where cooling is necessary, obviously), which not only uses energy but also increases the necessary size of the HVAC unit needed. This can be significant in places with a lot of lights so more applies to offices than residences. OTOH, if you live in a climate where heating is necessary, and even more if you heat with electric heat, there's obviously little gain to be had by switching to LEDs.
    - hellgas00 14y ago
      It's a given that most bulbs are located on the ceiling, unless you have a fan to redistribute that heat to the ground you aren't feeling the warmth. Also, when lights are off you still need to heat the house. Unless you're using the bulbs during the day, your HVAC unit will need to be just as big.

ams6110 14y ago

I'm not quite sure what you're saying... that the LED bulbs have a much higher energy and environmental "cost" in manufacturing, compared to a standard incandescent? That's quite likely true and has to be considered in the big picture (similar issues with electric vehicles, that their proponents like to ignore). For me the answer is simple: $13 is way too much to pay for a light bulb, I don't care how efficient it is.

matt_ 14y ago
That $13 led lamp will last you 10x as long as an incandescent while saving you all of that electricity. As long as the cri is acceptable there's really no reason not to get it.
DanBC 14y ago
Nakedrobot2 is saying that industry in general wastes / uses very much more energy than households do. While it's a good thing for households to move to energy efficient lighting it's not nearly enough. We need to work out ways for industry to reduce their energy waste / use. $13 for a lightbulb isn't too bad, if it's a nice light and efficient and lasts a long time. Businesses pay more than that if they need their light-bulb repair technician to get a ladder. For me the benefit of all these low energy bulbs is to have lamps everywhere, rather than one or two bright lights. It's a shame that most of them are a harsh blue/white light at the moment.
- fennecfoxen 14y ago
  Cree offers its bulbs in daylight and soft-white variants. I've seen in-between bright-white 60W LED bulbs as well, but usually for about ~$6 more or so from other manufacturers (mostly Philips).
jessriedel 14y ago
> $13 is way too much to pay for a light bulb, I don't care how efficient it is. You probably should care. It only takes 6 hours per day of usage for your 60W incandecent to suck up $13 of electricity in a year. And you'll have had to change it at least once. The LEDs will last for over a decade. Yes, if you're only renting a house/apartment for a year then you may not recoup your costs (although it will be close). Similarly if the light is on for less than an hour per day. But if you plan on sticking around awhile it makes complete financial sense. You can literally save $200 per bulb over the lifetime of a bulb used heavily. Also, the prices will continue to fall. EDIT: mikeash is right that I should have mentioned the dependancy of efficiency savings on your local electricity prices. I used 10 cents per kilowatt hour, which is a bit under the national average of 12 cents (meaning I was being conservative in potential savings). http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/10/27/141766341/the-price-of-electricity-in-your-state http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/10/27/141766341/the-pric...
- mikeash 14y ago
  Make sure to state what price you're assuming for electricity when making these claims. The cost of electricity in the US can vary by a factor of 3-4 depending on where you live. I'm sure it's worthwhile for any heavily-used light even in very cheap areas, but the specific breakeven time will vary quite a bit.
  - jcampbell1 14y ago
    You also have to make an assumption about the typical weather. The waste heat offsets heating costs in cold climates, but in hot climates, you must also burn additional electricity to pump the waste heat outside. My estimate is that a 50W bulb efficiency improvement results in a saving between 30W-70W depending on the climate. If you live in Iceland, the payback is probably never. If you live in Singapore, you will recoup the cost in months. I personally use LEDs everwhere except my bathroom during winter, where I use inefficient globe bulbs because it warms the bathroom.
    - mikeash 14y ago
ssmoot 14y ago
OTOH, my entire house is fluorescent and LED. My monthly electricity bill is $65. For a house! I never have to replace burnt out bulbs. At $13 I'd guess the LED is actually about at break-even over the life of the bulb vs incandescent unless you're buying incandescent in the big packs of 30 bulbs for $10. The only gas in my house is my central heating, and my old water heater. I plan to replace that with point-of-use electric tankless units. No more waiting 2 minutes for hot water at the kitchen sink! With a $3,000 grid-connected solar kit I'm pretty sure I can get to near $0/month on electricity, even with the electric water heaters and the Nissan Leaf I just bought last night. ;-) It's the future brother. Stuff lasts longer, provides a better experience and is cheaper. It's win/win/win. The environmental wins might not be all that dramatic with the impact of production factored in, but if you're in it for the long haul I figure you can still feel OK about it if you were up to replace a bulb/water-heater/car/etc anyways when you make the switch. PS: Have you seen the price on POU tankless water heaters? Once you have the panel/breaker/wiring in place, they're dirt cheap compared to traditional water heaters.
- driverdan 14y ago
  Lighting is a small fraction of your overall electricity usage. HVAC alone uses many times as much. While using efficient lighting is a good idea far too many people get hung up on it when there are better places to conserve.
  - nitrogen 14y ago
    It depends on how many people are in your family and how frequently they forget to turn off the lights. Plus, having 400W of incandescent bulbs on is 400 more watts that the A/C system has to cool.
    - ssmoot 14y ago
      Wow. I never thought of that. Thanks for the enlightening comment! Makes perfect sense.
    - ars 14y ago
      A good rule of thumb is it takes and extra 1/3 as much electricity to cool. So your 400 watts of bulbs will consume 133 watts in the cooling process.
chaostheory 14y ago
Please tell me you're using CFLs as the very least. Yes the upfront price is higher, but these bulbs actually pay for themselves in approximately two years and they start saving you money after that and not to mention time from not having to buy and install new bulbs.
- giardini 14y ago
  Problem is, the CFLs don't last. They usually don't last even a single year. My story: I got the faith: I replaced every incandescent in our condominium association with CFL. After one year, most all the CFLs had failed, despite having 3- to 5-year warranties. Also noticed another peculiarity: CFLs are stolen more often! Apparently our condominium parking lot has become a CFL bank for individuals who want to lower their light bills. So last week I bought a 4-pack of 40W incandescents for $4! That is down from the $12 I would have paid for four CFLs that wouldn't last any longer and that, when broken, are a mess/danger to clean up. No more CFLs for me, thank you! The whole CFL thing is looking like a scam.
  - DanBC 14y ago
    > when broken, are a mess/danger to clean up. When a company or a government agency gives instructions for clean-up they're going to go 'by the book' as much as possible. They give these scary sounding instructions because for every 50 people who manage to put a broken CFL into a bin without instructions there's going to be 1 who'll gather a bunch of broken CFLs in a sack and toss it into a lake; or who operates a trash business and who stores kilograms of them in the open leaching stuff into the water table. See also women being told to avoid '4d scans' (no medical purpose; everything carries some risk even if unknown and unquantifiable; thus avoid this risk because there's no medical benefit) or coffee cups with "This is hot" printed on them.
  - gambiting 14y ago
    I just replace my CFLs under warranty. As you said,most have 3-5 year warranties, so I just go back to the shop and get a brand new one. I always put the receipt in the box and the box in a safe place so I can always find it.
stonemetal 14y ago
Per Ahmdal's law optimizing something like residential light bulb energy use isn't going to have a large impact. So don't do it and say "this is enough for me" because you have made the smallest drop in the smallest bucket.
sixothree 14y ago
It was not very long ago that CF bulbs were $13 each. And even they were still more cost efficient to buy than incandescent bulbs.
pbreit 14y ago
> $13 is way too much to pay for a light bulb A bulb that never needs replacing (assuming you stay in residence less than 10 years) and pays for itself (and more) in energy savings? Sold. Easy.

othello 14y ago

This is actually a common misconception: in the US (as in most OECD countries), households consume slightly more energy than the industry. As a case in point, in 2009, industry consumed 256 million tons of oil equivalent, versus 262 mtoe for the residential sector (ie households). http://www.iea.org/stats/balancetable.asp?COUNTRY_CODE=US http://www.iea.org/stats/balancetable.asp?COUNTRY_CODE=US

scurvy 14y ago
Most energy consumption in the US goes towards heating and cooling, not illumination. Making your house more energy efficient starts with your windows and doors, not your lightbulbs.
- othello 14y ago
  Obviously, that's right. I was just pointing out that in the aggregate, improvements to energy efficiency in the residential sector are not a "tiny, tiny drop" vis-a-vis industry as the GP was implying. And it's also true that residential lighting is not a big energy consumer, even though it still represents close to 10% of US electricity use (not of overall energy use, of course). http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/light2006.pdf http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication...
- lutorm 14y ago
  That depends -- the energy wasted by illumination needs to be cooled away (if you live in a climate where cooling is necessary, obviously), which not only uses energy but also increases the necessary size of the HVAC unit needed. This can be significant in places with a lot of lights so more applies to offices than residences. OTOH, if you live in a climate where heating is necessary, and even more if you heat with electric heat, there's obviously little gain to be had by switching to LEDs.
  - hellgas00 14y ago
    It's a given that most bulbs are located on the ceiling, unless you have a fan to redistribute that heat to the ground you aren't feeling the warmth. Also, when lights are off you still need to heat the house. Unless you're using the bulbs during the day, your HVAC unit will need to be just as big.