By: Jonathan DuHamel

Jonathan DuHamel — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 00:03:34 +0000

The price rise in LED and CFL bulbs is due in part to the fact that China is restricting the supply of rare-earth elements which are used as the phosphors in these bulbs. This is yet another reason to develop our domestic mineral resources.

By: nobody

nobody — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 22:01:06 +0000

Energy demands across the country would be greatly reduced if people replaced the incandescent bulbs in their homes with LED as they burned out. Unfortunately the prices on LED replacement bulb for home use are still being artificially elevated. A local store that was selling the LED 60 watt replacements at under $9 has increased the price to $18. This wasn’t a sale price, or special advertised price. Did these suddenly become much more expensive to produce? I bought a couple of them at $9 and they actually lit the room brighter than the 60 watt, and used only 6 watts. The actual cost of production is only slightly more than a florescent replacement bulb. Why no investigative reporting exposing this fraud? Is it that advertising income and lobbying pressure far outweighs eco-conscience? When the industry pretended that LCD TVs or monitors cost more to produce than CRT even though even from the beginning the components of a CRT TV or monitor cost many times those of an LCD it was no surprise due to their wishing to exhaust the massive supplies before conversion. If manufacturers had stopped stockpiling materials for producing incandescent bulbs a few years ago when comparable LEDs began to be cheap to produce, and converted to LED production, they would have still been able to sell out of current stockpiles due to price differences even if the prices were dropped to a few dollars each as is reasonable.

Comments on: Fossil fuel resources of the United States

By: Jonathan DuHamel

By: nobody