"Green Options"-Shedding Light On LED
Thursday, August 07, 2008SUZANNE PRATT: From your car to your cell phone to the streets of your city, there's a dazzling technology gaining ground. It's the super- bright light emitting diode, more commonly known as LED lighting. These semiconductors stand to transform just about every device that uses light. In tonight's "Green Options," Lucy Craft kicks off a two-part look at the energy efficient lights that have sparked a $4 billion industry.
LUCY CRAFT, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: Cool-running, thin, versatile, shock-resistant and highly energy-efficient, LEDs are transforming the world of lighting, which in the U.S. consumes about a fifth of all electricity used. Especially in an era of energy anxiety, it's high time to mothball the 100-year-old incandescent light says Yves Lacroix, who runs a Shikoku startup which makes LED manufacturing equipment.
YVES LACROIX, PRESIDENT, Y SYSTEMS: Until now, the incandescent lamp, when you plug it in, you get a heater (INAUDIBLE) and OK, you can see the heater. But it's not really -- you're not plugging - (INAUDIBLE) heat and it's so hot that you can see it. So in an LED, when you plug it in, what comes out is only light.
CRAFT: At Nichia Corporation, which makes one third of the high-end LEDs sold worldwide, manager Takashi Sakamoto says the LEDs offer a raft of advantages over conventional lighting.
TRANSLATION OF: TAKASHI SAKAMOTO, MANAGER, LED BUSINESS, NICHIA CORP.: LEDs are long-lasting -- 50,000 hours, compared to just thousands for incandescents. They never burn out, but just gradually fade. LEDs are also small and light and very durable. Under normal use, they are virtually unbreakable.
CRAFT: A startup called Nitride Semiconductors is pioneering the market for ultraviolet LEDs, used in machines to check for counterfeit currency. President Yoshiko Muramoto says sturdy and compact UV LEDs could replace bulky UV lamps used to sterilize water in developing countries.
YOSHIHIKO MURAMOTO, PRES., NITRIDE SEMICONDUCTORS: (INAUDIBLE) LED. So market is very huge.
CRAFT: While LEDs are starting to sideline incandescents in the commercial sector, it may be decades before LEDs wipe out fluorescent lights. Toshinari Kori, a spokesman for the Tokushima state government, which is promoting LEDs, says the devices will have to drop in price by half in order to be cost-effective.
TRANSLATION OF: TOSHINARI KORI, SPOKESMAN, TOKUSHIMA DEPT. OF COMMERCE, INDUSTRY & LABOR: We have saved a little energy by using LEDs instead of fluorescents. Unlike fluorescents, LEDs are mercury-free and better for the environment. But there is no cost benefit. Fluorescent lights cost just $10, but an LED light runs $400.
CRAFT: Still, the versatility of LEDs goes beyond mere function. Across town at another Tokushima startup, which designs light shows, founder Katsutoshi Oguri experiments with a homemade Swarovski chandelier. Gone are the usual masses of wiring, because all electricity flows through the modules themselves.
TRANSLATION OF: KATSUTOSHI OGURI, CEO, LIGHTING ENVIRONMENT DESIGN CORP.: You could make something like this with regular lights, but it wouldn't be this lightweight and use so little energy. And if we used regular lights, the heat would melt the housing. These lights run cool, so it doesn't harm the acrylic cover.
CRAFT: The LED modules can be as easily snapped together as Legos. Brightness and color can be programmed via software.
OGURI: With regular lights, it would be impossible to alter colors and control the show from a computer program the way we do with LEDs. There are lots more possibilities; we just have to figure out what they are.
CRAFT: Experts say LEDs will eventually make the conventional light bulb obsolete as the candle. But LEDs won't just replace old-fashioned technology. They will change the very definition of illumination in ways that Thomas Edison could never have dreamed of. Lucy Craft, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Tokushima, Japan.
PRATT: Our look at the commercial LED Industry continues tomorrow with its small-town origins. That as we continue our series, "Green Options."
