As LED Industry Evolves, China Elbows Ahead - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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As LED Industry Evolves, China Elbows Ahead
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“LED lighting could see itself become the next solar, wind or other future opportunity that the U.S. will have given away by failing to address Chinese industrial policies and unfairly traded products,”
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SolarWorld, a solar panel maker that complained to the American government about what it considered unfair advantages for Chinese competitors, was later the victim of a cyberattack by Chinese military officials, according to a recent indictment by the Justice Department.
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American, European and Chinese regulators have put in effect energy-efficiency rules that phase out the use of incandescent bulbs. Big multinationals that make light bulbs like Philips, Osram and General Electric have responded by embracing light-emitting diodes, which use one-fifth of the electricity of incandescent bulbs and half the electricity of fluorescent bulbs.
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Many Chinese producers also have a poor and worsening reputation for quality, which may hurt them in the long term.
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Lighting accounts for about 6 percent of the world’s emissions of greenhouse gases, and LEDs have the potential to steeply reduce them.
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Prices have fallen by nearly half in the last year for low-end, low-wattage LEDs made in China, and by 15 to 20 percent for the higher-wattage versions made elsewhere, buyers and manufacturing executives said.
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“We do not buy Chinese LEDs,” said Mike Pugh, the procurement director at Xicato in San Jose, Calif., a large provider of indoor lighting systems for retailers and hotels. “We just can’t take that chance.”
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Xicato instead buys LEDs from multinationals like Cree of Durham, N.C.; Philips Lumileds, based in San Jose, Calif.; and Osram Opto Semiconductors of Regensburg, Germany.
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Three-quarters of China’s electricity still comes from burning coal, which contributes to severe air pollution as well as global warming.
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The Chinese LED industry has created tens of thousands of well-paid jobs for young community college graduates
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She earns $500 a month plus medical benefits and free food and lodging in an air-conditioned dormitory where employees sleep four to six i
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the solar and LED industries in China received huge loans at low interest rates from state-owned banks following directives from Beijing