Future bright for LEDs?

So the other day, Greenbang was mulling the future of those lovely, energy-saving LED lights and wondering if high prices would put people off. And you just let her witter on without putting your hand up and saying, “hey, check out Phillyburbs.com.

In Falls, presumably located in those Philly ‘burbs, the mayor is considering spanking $30,000 on LED lighting with a view to saving 40 percent on its energy bill and a return on investment in three years. From the article:

Supervisor James Prokopiak said Falls began considering LEDs in 2002 and a few years ago started a phased replacement of township-owned traffic lights with LEDs. At that time, Prokopiak said the lighting technology wasn’t “commercially available” for streetlights.

“It’s uncharted territory,” Prokopiak said. “But it’s something of great potential for the taxpayer.”

If it proves successful, Prokopiak said Falls will gradually switch the 2,600 traditional streetlights to LEDs.

And if you like your LEDs, more good news this time from Science Daily:

For the past 40 years, light-emitting diodes have been successfully employed wherever small amounts of light are needed. Present-day applications include car indicators, reversing and brake lights. However, the efficiency and luminosity of LEDs have never yet been sufficient to achieve a major breakthrough. Now, thanks to new technologies for chip manufacturing, structural design (OSTAR) and beam shaping the light output of the low-price, energy-saving LEDs has been vastly improved.

The new high-output LED modules are based on perfect synergy between solid-state physics and optics. The semiconductor components were built by OSRAM, while researchers in Jena took care of the optics.