The Department of Energy just published a new report comparing the life-cycle of LED, compact fluorescent, and incandescent lamps.
According to the report, CFLs and LED lamps are very comparable in terms of average energy consumption. They both use about one-fourth of the energy that incandescent lamps do.
However, the energy used to manufacture an LED lamp is expected to fall significantly in the next several years (see the purple pie charts).
What do you think … Is this what you would’ve expected to see? I was surprised to find that LED and CFL were neck and neck; I would’ve expected LED to win out in low energy consumption.