Light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, are four times more efficient than incandescent lights and greener than compact fluorescent bulbs (think: mercury). They also last up to 15 years before burning out.
So why aren’t they everywhere?
Because they’re expensive—created on a pricey layer of sapphire.
Until now. Purdue University researchers report a novel technique using cheap metal-coated silicon wafers to make LEDs.
Cheaper is better. Widespread LED use could cut electricity consumption by 10 percent.
That could help us heed Al Gore’s call to produce all global-warming-free electricity by 2018.
The LED findings appear this month in Applied Physics Letters, journal of the American Institute of Physics.
Julia Whitty is Mother Jones’ environmental correspondent, lecturer, and 2008 winner of the Kiriyama Prize and the John Burroughs Medal Award.
