LEDs to light a green path for the planet?

Environmental heat pollution, environmental poisons from heavy metals and toxic gasses, and billions of tons of greenhouse gasses annually are the sorry byproducts of electric illumination, private, institutional and industrial. A conspicuous  example of all these excesses  are the television, film, and entertainment industries, currently and historically a prime consumer of lumens of every  stripe, beginning with—

The Watt Guzzler: Studio Quartz Light:
This writer has spent an entire career cooking under various forms of film light, the worst of which (at least since the disappearance of carbon-arcs) are the quartz-halogen lights used by just about everybody in television, though less and less in film. They have the advantage of being close to point-source instruments  so the light can be “shaped” into very “punchy” or soft configurations. Their power consumption (nearly five times as much per lumen as HMIs) is matched watt for watt only by the tremendous air conditioning it takes to make them bearable, not to mention the occasional burned finger. The lamps themselves don’t last terribly long and gradually change color temperature from the moment you first turn them on.

HMI lights offer the most bang for the buck in film production, and come close to a match to sunlight with a little filtration. Their efficiency expressed in lumens per watt  is much higher than quartz and, as it is a point source, can be similarly shaped. The biggest units have long replaced carbon arcs on big exteriors. Their down-sides include high levels of UV light (which have fried the occasional gaffer), huge, heavy power supplies, and the replacement costs of their expensive lamps, which do burn out or age. 

Fluorescent Tubes
Fluorescent lighting found its way from supermarkets and government offices onto the film set strictly by virtue of efficiency and cost-savings. The quality of the light they produce ranges from soft to softer which is fine if you’re in the mood for soft light. Their spectra are very “spiky” compared to the linear curves of quartz and sunlight and are, in my experience, hard to integrate with either of the other sources except as fill light, or specialty lighting for color key screens. As for the disposal of fluorescent lights (and their modern off-spring, HID lights which also contain a dash of lead), the bulbs and tubes contain mercury gas, and when broken, the gas is released in the air. Broken tubes/bulbs in a trash can or dumpster can create clouds of mercury gas that can linger around the area for hours, exposing anyone nearby to the harmful gas. So between disposing of the bulbs and ballasts, we provide two of the worst environmental pollutants in the industrial nations. So don’t we have recycling in place for this?

“The problem with fluorescent bulbs is that they’ll break before they get to the landfill. They’ll break in containers, or they’ll break in a dumpster or they’ll break in the trucks. Workers may be exposed to very high levels of mercury, a potent neurotoxinm when that happens,” says John Skinner, executive director of the Solid Waste Association of North America, the trade group for the people who handle trash and recycling. (Anyone who thinks this is inconsequential, see the story of the woman from Bangor, Maine below).
So what are the alternatives?

The LED Revolution is Underway
It is estimated that light fixtures based on LEDs will, in the next ten years, will replace fluorescent lighting in general commercial and home usage based on costs alone. Just like other consumer electronics based on semiconductors, the technology leaps forward as the price plummets. And LEDs have no mercury, lead, or PCBs to further trash the planet.

LED-Z is ahead of the curve.
The advantages to the TV, Film, and Entertainment industry make LEDs of the type manufactured by LEDZ a must-have item now. See product advantages.

So what was that story about the woman from Bangor, Maine?
Brandy Bridges was among the untold thousands of Mainers who liked the idea of saving both money and the environment. She installed more than two dozen compact fluorescent bulbs in her Prospect home.But Bridges’ trust in the new technology literally shattered this week when a minor incident with a loose bulb turned into a major headache. A bulb she was trying to rethread tumbled from her hands and broke on the carpeted floor of her daughter’s bedroom.

Remembering lessons from shop class about fluorescent bulbs, Bridges began calling around for advice on the proper cleanup procedure.

“I was nervous. Something about this gave me a bad feeling,” Bridges said in an interview.

She called The Home Depot, where she bought the bulb, and was referred to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which eventually referred her to the DEP’s environmental response team. A specialist who responded found mercury readings more than six times the state’s acceptable level at the spot of the broken bulb.

Readings a few feet from the spot where the bulb broke were within safe levels.

The specialist referred Bridges to an environmental cleanup company. The estimated cost, according to Bridges, was about $2,000.

“Save 40 cents a month on your electric bill, but it will cost you two grand to clean up?” Bridges said.