Over in Detroit they are switching all of their downtown street lights to light-emitting diodes (LEDs). I think this is really cool! No, not because I’m some sort of environment whack job (believe me, I’m not), but what a cool concept.
You can get the same exact lighting from a source that uses much less than half of the power of the current source. Forget about the better-earth ramifications (though they are vast), think about the ability to use that excess energy towards other purposes! Think about the ability to offer extremely low-cost electricity services to the rural areas of the country – or to distressed markets that could use a month of free electricity to bolster a local economy.
No, I’m not looking to have the government start giving away these free handouts, but I am definitely looking for private electric companies to give away some electricity instead of making a big profit.
I am glad to hear this. The same compounds/materials used in the LED are also being used in the third generation solar panels which will be rolled out pretty soon. The semiconductors in the LEDs have the property of both giving light when electricity is applied but also aborb the
light to produce electricity, but not like older cells. The difference is they almost completely absorb the visible spectrum. This give a ten fold increase in electricity production. Pretty cool huh. Joe, you might want to hold off on that car purchase for the volt when electricity is cheaper than gas!