Energy Cost in Making LED repacement bulbs

I found this research on the treehugger.com. The article was written by Michael Graham Richard. I found the artcle very well done and interesting. Treeugger.com has a lot of information on LED replacement bulbs.


LED Lights LCA Studies
Both the Carnegie Mellon and Osram studies found that production is a relatively small portion of the total life-cycle impact of the different lightbulb technologies. From the Osram study: "[with LEDs and CFLs] over 98% of the energy used is consumed to generate light. Less than two percent is allocated to production. This dismisses any concern that manufacturing of LED particularly might be very energy-intensive."
When comparing LEDs that produce about 30 lumens/watt to CFLs, the results are very close, and for all practical purposes, we can say that LEDs are as energy efficient as CFLs. But LEDs are still improving and they do not contain mercury, which makes their disposal less hazardous than CFLs. The Carnegie Mellon study predicts that efficiencies of 150 lumens/watt are possible for LEDs:

I for see LED replacement bulbs becoming a real contender to the cfl market