I wrote a few months back about CFL (compact fluorescent lighting) lighting which has really taken off in the last couple months to my pleasure. Better for your wallet and better for the environment.  A win win situation.  The other day, Andrew Leonard at Salon has post that spoke indirectly to what should someday become the next best thing, LED lights.  Apparently we can thank Shuji Nakamura for bringing us today’s new breed of LEDs for the masses. Besides alarm clocks, the place we most commonly encounter LED lights are traffic lights.  LED lights are ideally suited for traffic lights since they both last longer and are made up of hundred individual diodes.  Diodes tend to wear slowly instead of going out suddenly. But more importantly given a LED light is made up of hundreds of individual diodes, it’s improbable enough diodes would fail to cause a light failure. Less light failures means less accidents caused by a malfuctionion traffic lights.

LED lights use even less energy than CFL bulbs. T hey also last longer to boot.  Productdose does nice comparison of the different lights including a useful excel statsheet. Of course the biggest drawback is that LED lights are they are very expensive. The cheapest I’ve been able to come across for a LED replacement is $14.99.  Given that a CFL bulb costs only about $1.5, it’s hard to justify the tenfold price difference even though you’re better off in the long run.

In due time the price point for LED lights should come down as it does with all new technologies. I am, however, very interested in seeing how LED lights operate at home. I’m going to do a little more research and shopping around and purchase my very own LED bulb to replace any remaining incandescent bulb I might have.  I’ll review my LED experience as soon as I receive my first bulb.