Leading with LED

Some random smatterings of information to report today, related to the adoption of LED technology.

First off, the folks that gave away all those LED holiday lights at the end of last year are saying thanks with a $1,000 donation to a non-profit organization with a mission to address environmental issues. Any 501(c)(3) organization from the United States is eligible, and you can vote for the one of your choice by visiting the HolidayLEDs.com Web site. The cut-off for submissions is May 8. Once all those names are collected, the company will post an official ballot on its Web site, which will be live for a period of a week.

Another LED lighting company, Cree, announced this week that several universities in the United States and China are the initial members of its new LED University program. The initial participants include North Carolina University, Marquette University, University of California at Santa Barbara, University of Arkansas and Tianjin Polytechnic University.

The program calls for universities to "evaluate, deploy and promote LED lighting" on their campuses. Cree cites stats from the U.S. Department of Energy estimating that about 22 percent of the energy used in the United States goes to lighting. Here are some examples of what these schools are doing: - U.C. Santa Barbara is using 23 LED streetlights from BetaLED, saving approximately 44 percent in the related energy - University of Arkansas is working on an installation of 1,700 recessed lights across its campus - Marquette has installed LED T8 replacement lights (this is essentially tube lighting that you'd normally associated with fluorescent bulbs) from LED Dynamics and is working on recessed and task lighting implementations - Tianjin has installed 1,500 streetlights that were designed by graduate students to illuminate the main campus roadway

Finally, Lamina has managed to snare a carbon offset certification from First Climate (one of the carbon credit and aset management organizations formerly known as 3C Group), indicating that its TitanTurbo TruColor LED product line "avoids" more than 3 tons of carbon dioxide emissions compared with equivalent incandescent lighting options.

I'm sure you'll begin seeing similar labeling and carbon emission disclosure declarations in the months to come.