Here’s a Clean Break column about advances and uses of LED technology that appeared in today’s Toronto Star. It talks about the growing use of LEDs for niche lighting applications and, increasingly, general illumination. Examples in the story include an X-mas light exchange program in Toronto, an LED-lit Vincent Thomas Bridge in Los Angeles, plans in Toronto to replace all traffic signal lights with LEDs, as well as the municipality’s decision to put solar-powered LED lighting in hundreds of bus shelters throughout the city. (The picture here is of the Vincent Thomas Bridge.)

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There’s no disputing that Thomas Edison was a bright guy, having invented an incandescent light bulb that could burn for more than 1,000 hours. It was a major breakthrough, and 125 years later we’re still faithfully using what is essentially the same technology.

But that technology is inefficient and wasteful, at least when compared with light-emitting diodes, or LEDs. New advances in these semiconductor-based lights, those glowing dots commonly found in alarm clocks and stereo systems, are resulting in higher-intensity LEDs that are ideal in an increasing number of lighting scenarios.

Down the road, some experts believe, LEDs could challenge the incandescent bulb’s tungsten grip on general lighting  applications. And a growing number of decision makers are picking up on the trend, realizing that LEDs offer a way of lowering electricity consumption and costs….. MORE

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