LED vs Fluorescent There are many uses for fluorescent technology and it seems to be the focus of the "main stream" green movement to replace all of your incandescent lighting with compact fluorescent light bulbs. While we understand that the market position is to promote the more prevalent product, we think we can make a good case in the argument that LED technology is more green than fluorescent and that it should be promoted more than it currently is. Consider the following:
When you break a fluorescent, you are exposing your environment with toxic chemicals. Media recently reported a mother who was quoted $2,000 to have a broken CFL properly disposed of.
Compact Fluorescent Lighting (CFL) still uses more energy than LED edison style bulbs.
When using fluorescent lighting around food (like a grocery store cold case) the lamp produces a fair amount of heat that requires more energy to cool the case. When/if the bulb breaks within the case, all of the food must be removed and disposed of with Hazmat Handling due to the mercury poisoning.
Many landfills will no longer dispose of fluorescent light bulbs and if they do, some charge an extra fee for special handling.
So, if pushing the use of fluorescent technology is the "green" way to go…
LED lighting technology is progressing rapidly as the "authentic green" population sees the value in the in the product. In addition to a more environmentally friendly light, the use of it shows a return on investment over time as the watts used is much less than fluorescent technology.
The NY Times is reporting on a new report 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% 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 been unproven 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.
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