NBC Nightly News recently reported on the government-mandated phase out of traditional incandescent bulbs. This report focused on incandescent being replaced by compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs), a move many people are not quite happy with. What was interesting about the report was that LED light bulbs – the world’s most energy-efficient, environmentally-friendly type of bulb – was conspicuously absent from the report.

Soon LED bulbs won't be just for flashlights anymore.

In fact, the report seemed to suggest that you were required to buy CFLs when replacing incandescent bulbs. As the popular LED-related blog CreeLEDRevolution.com pointed out, that is simply not true:

“The federally-mandated phase out of inefficient incandescent light bulbs does not in any way specify that consumers must only buy mercury-laden CFLs,” the blog post says.

“The new energy efficiency standards, set to start in 2012, say we can replace our energy-wasting incandescent bulbs with any lighting technology that is roughly 30 percent more efficient than traditional incandescent light bulbs.

“That means we could light our homes and businesses with CFLs, but it also means we can choose energy-efficient LED lighting. It even means we could turn to slightly more efficient incandescents that use halogen technology (although this borderline defeats the purpose of the standards, since halogens just barely make the energy-efficiency cut).”

If you’d like more information about what the incandescent phase-out could mean to you and your family, read Shedding New Light, an informative article about the new US Energy Efficiency Standards for Everyday Light Bulbs.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, February 27th, 2011 at 7:30 pm and is filed under LED Lights, LED News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.