[int'l] Light Up The World With LEDs

re-posted from EcoSpace.cc

By Kyra

Light Up the World with LEDs

The Light Up The World (LUTW) Foundation has been running officially since 2002. Since it's conception as a humanitarian aid organization it has provided over 14,000 homes in over 42 countries with safe, affordable, ecologically sound, highly-efficient lighting through the use of WLED technologies (White Light Emitting Diodes). Their vision is to make lighting of this quality and caliber accessible to the over 2 billion people currently living without proper lighting. The use of kerosene and other fuel based lighting sources is the number one producer of greenhouse gases in the majority world, states research by the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratories (LBNL).

In terms of power consumption the average use of an LED is 1Watt per hour, compared with 5W for incandescent bulbs and 4W for Compact Fluorescent. More extensive comparison charts can be found on the LUTW website, here. LUTW's projects strive to be ecologically sound in every aspect. As such, energy sources for the lighting systems they install range from Photovoltaics, Solar and Wind powered to Person Powered Pedal Generators (essentially riding a bike to generate electricity).

It makes me wonder why we don't have more of these types of systems in use here at home! While compact fluorescents are touted as the ecological solution to lighting here in Canada, there is lots of evidence indicating that fluorescents are extremely unhealthy for the body...and if LED's do in fact use one quarter the energy of compact fluorescents, as indicated in comparison charts...help me out here? Why are we still building with the most expensive lighting around in terms of total cost? Why not hook up those thousands of person-powered exercise machines in gyms across the globe to generate electricity for our cities? Maybe then Hydro-Quebec would reconsider destroying the ecosystems surrounding all of Quebec's rivers by putting multiple dams up to create hydro-electricity...But then maybe we're just supposed to accept that "money makes the world go round", sit back and enjoy the ride into oblivion.Against any proposed solution to unsustainable practices there seem to be a thousand arguments for keeping things the way they are-yet it seems clear to me that we need creative solutions, and we need them fast!

Light Up The World is an initiative of Calgarian Dr. Dave Irvine-Halliday, whose work in Nepal led him to realize that lack of adequate lighting was a major problem in the majority world. Aside from the ecological effects, fuel based lighting is extremely unhealthy for human bodies and can cause a variety of illnesses related to inhaling poisonous fumes.Lack of adequate lighting is also closely linked to illiteracy, though I have my qualms with the assumption that enforcing literacy on oral cultures is always necessarily a positive...

Some of LUTW's current projects include providing lighting systems to a Tibetan orphanage, aid stations in Papua New Guinea, to homes in the townships of South African, and to education facilities in Sierra Leone. LUTW is kept afloat by donations, so if you'd like to contribute some of that monetary energy to the cause , or know someone who might, please visit http://lutw.org/howtohelp.htm.