More efficient lighting with LEDs

The future of lighting, all kinds of lighting, is LED’s. Only a major and totally unanticipated discovery would prevent LED’s taking the place of incandescent and fluorescent lighting during the next five years. LED’s will soon dominate the lighting industry because they are much more energy-efficient, they stay cool, they are small and light-weight, and they are more earth-friendly to manufacture and dispose.

Energy-efficiency and operating temperature are closely linked. Incandescent light bulbs waste approximately 90% of the electricity used producing heat instead of light. Fluorescent bulbs waste nearly half of their power as heat. LED’s produce light with more than 90% of their electrical draw. This enormously reduces the amount of energy needed to light an area while also reducing the energy needed the keep that same area cool. The lights themselves are now quite expensive but the energy savings will make up for the price difference. Prices will rapidly decline as demand and production increase(remember how “expensive” compact fluorescent bulbs were when first introduced?).

Longevity is the LED’s forte. Most currently being sold will last at least five years if never turned off. For most businesses, changing dead light bulbs is a daily or weekly(at least monthly) necessity. Switching to LED lights could allow a maintenance department to forget how to change a light bulb. How many saved labor hours, reduced storage space and inventory could this be worth to the average business? How much aggravation and space could be saved in the average home?

These are the reasons for the “LED Section” of my investing watch-list. I now monitor: Cree, Inc.(CREE) of Durham, NC; Veeco Instruments, Inc.(VECO) of New York, NY; Carmanah Tech Corp.(CMHXF) of Victoria, BC, Canada; XODTEC LED, Inc.(XODG) of Taiwan; Obelux of Helsinki, Finland and Bridgelux of Sunnyvale, CA. My not-so-secret wish is that Obelux and Bridgelux go public in the near future. These companies should all have a very bright future in the lighting industry.

Veeco Instruments makes the equipment other companies need to produce LED lights. Cree is one of the oldest and best established LED lighting manufacturers. Carmanah specializes in self-contained solar-powered outdoor LED lighting units. Obelux specializes in aviation and architectural lighting and has just announced a 200,000 candela white LED aviation marker light that is Federal Aviation Administration approved and uses just 350 Watts. Bridgelux is lead by ex-Seagate Technology CEO Bill Watkins and has already applied for over 250 patents covering various aspects of LED light production.

Stock market performance of these companies has been less than stellar so far. This is expected in with just-emerging technologies. As a greater variety of products becomes available, product prices drop and the importance of energy-efficiency increases, share prices of these companies should soar. I continue to wait and watch and monitor new developments within the industry.

Large private-sector companies and governments, led by the military, will undoubtedly be the early-adopters of large-scale LED lighting, followed by smaller companies and then individuals. Starbucks has already committed to making the switch in all of its stores. The U.S. Navy has committed to LED lighting on its combat ships. Many more forward-thinking organizations will soon figure out the many advantages of LED lights even at present prices. By the time they have to change the first dead light, replacement prices will probably have dropped by 60% or more and the initial investment will have been repaid several times over in energy savings.

These are exciting times in the world of batteries

Batteries play a major and very under-rated role in our everyday lives. With many “green” technologies dependent on battery power storage(think electric cars and reliable, on-demand supply to the grid from wind and solar power installations) the importance of batteries will only grow. These are the reasons I am bullish on battery stocks even though the general market seems to be taking a much more wait-and-see approach.

Some of the companies that I invest in on my current watch list involved in battery production include Advanced Battery Technology(ABAT), Braskem SA(BAK), Valence Technology(VLNC), Ener1(HEV) and A123 Systems(AONE). I usually own shares in at least one of these companies. These companies cover a range from traditional lead-acid batteries to ever-more-common lithium-ion batteries to cutting-edge research on totally new power storage solutions. All of these technologies will play a big role in the coming years.

One exciting recent discovery took place at MIT. A common virus was used as a bio-template for preparing lithium ion battery anodes and cathodes in plain water at room temperature. Batteries produced this way could be made into any shape, including woven into fabrics. Imagine wearing a rechargeable vest that could power a laptop and smart-phone. This technology would also allow the outer casing of a camera or phone to double as the battery. The process eliminates the need for high temperatures and noxious chemicals during the battery manufacturing contest and the batteries stay much cooler during use, reducing the chances of fires(remember those laptops bursting into flames?).

Philadelphia is about to start a project with a novel use of batteries – subway stops will be equipped with high-capacity batteries(1-1.5MW) to capture electrical power produced by the brakes of the trains approaching the stations. The power stored in the batteries will then be reused to accelerate the trains as they leave. The new system is expected to save the city a considerable amount on its power bill and might even be able to feed some power back into the grid. The Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority has awarded a $900,000 grant to Viridity Energy to construct the system. It is expected to be in use by next spring.

Xcel Energy is already using a bank of sulfur/sodium batteries from NGK Insulators of Japan to smooth out the supply of electricity from an 11MW Minnesota wind farm. The batteries can store 7.2MW-hours of power. They are the size of two semi trailers and weigh 80 tons. Price of the batteries was $4-million. Xcel is planning to test a similar battery bank with a large solar array near the Denver airport.

A new way to harvest solar energy

A new and much more efficient way to convert solar energy into electricity has been discovered. The process is called Photon Enhanced Thermionic Emission(PETE). PETE could double or even triple the current efficiency of photovoltaic conversion by also taking advantage of the heat that usually goes to waste. Another plus is that PETE becomes more efficient at high temperatures while current photovoltaic technology becomes less efficient at increasing temperatures.

PETE is achieved by coating the photovoltaic semiconductor material with a thin layer of cesium. Research continues on which semiconductor materials work best for this process. PETE seems to work well at temperatures as high as 800C. The added efficiency over current photovoltaic materials could finally make solar price-competitive with oil. The new process uses already-existing and easily available materials and has been tested in southern California's Mojave Desert.

The research is being done by a joint venture of Stanford and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The work is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Department of Energy. The original paper was published in Nature Materials after a success
ful demonstration of PETE.

photo courtesy of: freephoto.com