But LEDs aren't used just for aesthetic purposes. Virtually all companies that produce light bulbs are trying to find a way to manipulate LED technology, specifically trying to develop a white light for wide use. LEDs produce only one color, which comes in handy when a single, unfiltered color is needed -- say, for stop lights (60 percent of which are now LEDs). They tend to last longer (instead of going out every 8 to 14 months, some LED traffic systems haven't been replaced since 1996), and are 90 percent more efficient than incandescent technology. Should they be able to create a pure white light, the energy savings will be enormous.

In the meantime, the Canadian nonprofit organization Light Up the World already uses LEDs to provide light for homes in the developing world. The organization has brought its LED-based home lighting systems, which are powered by renewable energy sources, to more than 3,500 homes in Nepal, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Bolivia and Mexico, among other countries. No, it's not perfect light -- not white enough for Western standards. But the LED sources often replace kerosene lamps, which are known to cause pollution and damage the environment.

On its Web site, Light Up the World notes that lighting consumes 20 percent of the world's electricity and predicts that the LED revolution could "halve lighting-related electricity demand, massively reduce maintenance requirements and change lighting design philosophies forever." Not to mention light up a killer living room.

RESOURCES:
Lighting up at home

For cabinet lighting or retail display:
GELcore Flexible LED Accent Lighting System

For retail outlets that sell the Flexible LED Accent Lighting System
Go here.

GELcore Tetra LED strip: While this product is mainly for commercial use, a consumer version of Tetra lighting costs about $25 and is available at several retail stores, including Wal-Mart.

For mood lighting or color-changing systems:
Color Kinetics offers "intelligent lighting systems," or LED displays that are digitally controlled. Many of these products are best suited for industrial or commercial use. Color Kinetics products for home use include:
iColor Cove: LED color and color-changing lighting effects for alcoves and accent areas.
iColor MR g2: a color-changing lamp that generates saturated bursts of color from most standard MR16 fixtures and sockets.

LightTro: an Edison-mount color-changing lamp that replaces traditional lamps in standard light fixtures, producing colors and mood-setting lighting effects (like Sunset, a wash of reds, yellows and oranges, and Eclipse, a mix of twilight blues and purples).

LightWasher: a plug-in access light to cast a changing color wash onto walls.

For information about LED Christmas lights from the U.S. Department of Energy:
Go here.

To buy LED Christmas lights (and to view an energy calculator on their waste):
Go here

This excellent industrial design blog, IDFuel, has a lighting section with consumer information, testimonials, and "where to buy" details.

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