| We'd be better ditching LEDs and switching back to incandescents, it would be far better for the environment. All our power comes from renewables and nuclear, to a rough approximation, so if you're turning wind and rain or really excited neutrons into electricity you're not emitting things that change the climate. Converting that into a lot of heat along with light isn't worse for the environment than converting into not a lot of head and light, even if it means using more electricity. What about the lamps themselves? An LED lightbulb is a technological marvel made of a bunch of different plastics, fibreglass, copper, bismuth and tin for the solder, gallium arsenide in the LEDs, tantalum in the capacitors, assembled in huge factories using processes involving all sorts of hideous chemicals and a terrifying amount of energy. On the other hand, an incandescent lightbulb is a milk bottle with a coil of wire in it and all the air sucked out. Again, to a very rough approximation, something you can make in a blacksmith's forge is probably going to be better overall for the environment than something that requires a multi-billion pound factory. Go renewable, and go incandescent. |
When this happens, you might have a point.
> An LED lightbulb is a technological marvel made of a bunch of different plastics, fibreglass, copper, bismuth
But so is solar panel so you need to make sure you're not using these.