Cleantech Blog

Thursday, April 03, 2008

LED Your Light Shine

by Cristina Foung

My favorite green product of the week: EarthLED CL-3 LED light bulb

What is it?
How many Cleantechbloggers does it take to change a light bulb? If it’s changing an incandescent to an LED, only one – because we all know LEDs are the way of the future. The EarthLED CL-3 is a 3-watt LED replacement bulb, which is equivalent to a 45-watt incandescent bulb. It can be used anywhere you use a traditional bulb – even under lampshades (but then you can’t quite as easily make them conversation pieces).

Why is it better?
The CL-3 is not only energy efficient, it also has a life span of more than 50,000 hours. According to EarthLED, that means you’ll have an 11 year relationship with your LED (while in that same time frame, you’d have meaningless flings with at least 50 incandescent bulbs).

Of course, the initial cost of an LED is much higher than for a compact fluorescent light bulb or an incandescent. But have no fear. Over the LED’s entire life, it will only cost you $35, including the cost of the bulb itself and operational expenses. EarthLED compares that to “a traditional fixture using an incandescent bulb [that] will cost nearly $230.” And those costs don’t even take the positive environmental externalities into account like the carbon dioxide saved from all that unused electricity!

These LEDs are also RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive) compliant, so they don’t have any hazardous materials you need to worry about. And because they last so long, you send far less waste to the landfill.

Where can you find it?
You can buy CL-3 bulbs and a variety of other LEDs from the EarthLED store. They are available in warm white and cool white. One CL-3 costs $29.99.

But here’s a little shameless self-promotion. The Green Home Huddle just launched a contest running through Earth Day in which you could win a CL-3 (plus a bunch of other cool stuff) just for writing some green product reviews or wiki articles.

Besides her green products column on Cleantech Blog, Cristina is a passionate advocate for green living at the Green Home Huddle at Huddler.com, which focuses on electric cars, energy efficient appliances, and other green products.

Labels: cleantech, EarthLED, efficient lighting, green tech, LED

Friday, February 15, 2008

Can We Actually Reduce Energy Usage without Hurting GDP?

I was thinking today, in cleantech we often talk a lot about energy efficiency. Californians often cite that this state has grown its economy for the last 20 years without a significant increase in energy usage per capita, compared to the rest of the country, where GDP per capita goes up, and energy usage goes up just as much. But of course, California has lost much of its manufacturing sector over that same 20 year period, too. Perhaps no coincidence?

But if we wanted to actually do it, where could we actually save energy without impacting GDP growth, make a serious difference in our power bill, and do it in a big way - targeting say, 50% of our total power usage on a per capita basis?

CFLs & LEDs - We are already moving aggressively towards compact flourescent light bulbs, and the penetration rates are still low. As that trend continues, and LEDs come into the mix for more and more applications, our lighting bills should trend straight downward for the next decade. Now if we can just stop cringing at the thought of a $3 lightbulb!
Heating and Air Conditioning - I know whenever my power bill goes higher than I like, I just watch how often I turn the heater on, and adjust the thermoset a bit. The answer here has always been some combination of improved technology, smart metering and more transparency in billing and usage, and energy prices rising high enough for consumers to feel the pinch. Oh, and did I mention insulation, California?
Hotwater heaters - Can anybody say, "tankless"?
Power generation -If every power plant was upgraded to the latest generation of technology - in the power generation world - newer tends to equal more efficient all else being equal - the impact could be staggering. But bottom line, this means our regulators would have to approve the increase in utility capital expenditures and pass those costs on through to us in the short term. That's about as likely as George W announcing a plan to tax every SUV Detroit makes and give the money to the poor to buy solar systems.
Solar - As for solar - which is typically sold on a "reduce your energy bill" pitch, not a chance. At $0.15 to $1.00/kwh (depending on who's counting and how they count), if we actually reduced a significant amount of our building load with solar power we'd likely send our GDP plummeting. There are lots of reasons to love solar, but decreasing energy usage per unit of GDP is not one of them. At least, not yet.

These aren't new ideas. But definitely worth repeating until we learn the lesson.

Neal Dikeman is a founding partner at Jane Capital Partners LLC, a boutique merchant bank advising strategic investors and startups in cleantech. He is founding contributor of Cleantech Blog, a Contributing Editor to Alt Energy Stocks, and a blogger for CNET's Cleantech blog.

Labels: alternative energy, CFL, cleantech, energy, energy efficiency, green tech, greentech, LED