Summary
The conversion to more efficient, greener lighting is one option for government spending to help jumpstart economies faced with crises such as the global recession. At a local level, US cities have the opportunity to follow suit with other ones across the United States such as Ann Arbor, Michigan and Raleigh, North Carolina in replacing standard incandescent lighting on city-owned property with LEDs.
Analysis
Taiwan's cabinet recently has passed a motion calling for $1 billion investment in “green energy” technology, which will strongly benefit the country’s light emitting diode (LED) industry. It is similar to a Manhattan project but focused on clean energy rather than nuclear energy. Under the plan, delayed nearly six years, approximately $500 million will be invested in research and development and over $500 million in infrastructure deployment projects and subsidies over the next five years. The bill should help leverage the country’s manufacturing strengths and help prevent a deeper recession, similar to the renewable energy incentives in the Obama economic stimulus plan in the US.
An LED is an electronic light source that is based on the principles of a semiconductor diode. LEDs are usually small in area (~1 square mm) with integrated optical components to shape its radiation pattern and assist in the reflection of emitted light. LEDs present many benefits over traditional light sources including lower energy consumption, longer lifetime, enchanced robustness, smaller size and faster switching capability. However, they are relatively expensive and require more precise current and heat conrol than traditional light sources. Some estimates have shown that up to 70% of a building’s lighting energy costs can be reduced with the conversion to LED components and fixtures; subsequently, minimizing the associated carbon footprint.
Specific infrastructure components of the Taiwanese bill include replacing 700,000 current, traditional incandescent traffic lights with LEDs and building Asia's largest solar power plant. In the near-term, this plan will encourage investment and help the Taiwan LED industry overcome the financial tsunami affecting this land, while stimulating the creation of a full LED lighting industrial supply chain that is critical to the expansion of this business. The purpose of the overall plan is to turn green energy into a $25 billion industry by 2015. Economy minister Yiin Chii-Min stated that the research and development element is designed to induce $4 billion investment from the private sector.
On a consumer level, a 60-watt incandescent light bulb produces approximately 800 lumens of light output. In comparison, a 20 watt LED can produce 800 lumens of light, but it costs about $80 versus about $1 for an incandescent bulb. In general, a big commercial fixture requires thousands of LEDs, creating technical challenges for designers, while consuming about the same power as a florescent fixture of the same output. Thus, LEDs cannot be employed as a direct replacement for traditional fixtures, which has motivated LED companies such as Cree (founded by my predecessors at NC State Univ.) and Philips to acquire fixture companies or develop their own fixture product lines. Overall, 70 percent of the light fixture market in the US is commercial, not residential. Furthermore, LEDs offer an advantageous array of color temperatures or tones that can be tailored to specific commercial display applications.
Even though comparable electricity savings may be achieved from compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) compared to LEDs, they contain mercury, which requires recycling or special handling if broken. However, CFLs generally use less power, have a longer lifetime, but possess a higher purchase price. The LED industry maintains that the electricity savings over incandescent or CFL bulbs allow for LEDs to generate a timely return on investment.
In any respect, the conversion to more efficient, greener lighting is one option for government spending to help jumpstart economies faced with crises such as the global recession. At a local level, US cities have the opportunity to follow suit with other cities across the United States such as Ann Arbor, Michigan and Raleigh, North Carolina in replacing standard incandescent lighting on city-owned property with LEDs.
Thus, we do not necessarily have to "go nuclear" to reduce carbon emissions and improve energy efficiency.
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